


I'm So Done With This, My Love

by ThatRavenclawBitch



Series: Where is My Mind [8]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Stargate Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2019-11-01 10:40:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17865713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatRavenclawBitch/pseuds/ThatRavenclawBitch
Summary: The angsty remix to the final chapters of Feet in the Air written years ago but just now getting around to posting. It detours from chapter 36 of the main fic when Lacey leaves the strip club and goes to Rush's apartment.





	1. Chapter 1

Lacey paced outside of Rush’s apartment for a good ten minutes before she worked up the nerve to knock. She loved him. She knew she loved him. If the beyond sick feeling in her stomach at the thought of losing him wasn’t an indication of that, she didn’t know what was. She supposed she probably should have waited until the morning to tell him. But when you realized that you loved someone, really and truly, you wanted to tell them as soon as possible.

She rapped on the door again, biting her lip and bouncing on the balls of her feet. Adrenaline was coursing through her. God, she needed him to answer the door before she chickened out.

“Nicholas Rush!” she yelled. “I know you’re in there!”

The door wrenched open on rusty hinges and Lacey prepared to belt out her declaration before the air was sucked from her lungs as though someone had punched her straight in the chest.

“Can I help you?” asked Zelena Greene, her curly red hair sticking up at odd angles, her long legs completely bare under a men’s blue dress shirt that barely covered her ass. A shirt Lacey recognized.

She stumbled back from the doorway involuntarily.

“If you’re here to see Nicholas, he’s asleep,” the woman continued, leaning casually in the doorframe as if she belonged there. “Poor thing is quite tuckered out.”

Lacey felt as though her heart were trying to hammer its way out of her chest. This couldn’t be happening. Nick had told her only hours ago that he loved her, and now she found him with another woman?

“Wait, I know you,” Zelena said, shaking a finger in Lacey’s direction. “You’re that little undergrad Nicholas was trifling around with.” She let out a delicate little snort at that, covering her mouth with her hand. “Did you need something? I’ll tell him you stopped by, though I doubt he’ll care.”

Lacey just shook her head. “No. There’s no need to tell him.”

“Oh you poor dear,” Zelena said with mock concern. “You didn’t really think you could keep a man like that’s interest did you? Men like Rush want a woman with learning and life experience. Not you.”

Lacey glared at her, wishing the other woman’s words didn’t sound so much like the voice in her own head which had been telling her that for months. She’d had her chance with Nick and now she’d blown it. He’d fallen into bed with the first woman to look his way. She thought he hated Zelena. But here she was in his apartment, in his clothes, at 4 in the morning.

“I’d be surprised if he could get it up for you,” Lacey spat, anger and sadness swirling in her gut making her want to wipe the smug smile off of Zelena’s face. “He’d probably have to pretend you were me.”

“Why you little bitch,” Zelena hissed, her pretty face contorting into something ugly with rage.

“Enjoy my leftovers,” Lacey said, turning on her heel and heading down the hall.

“You were never good enough for him!” Zelena called after her. “Some two bit little townie slut!”

Lacey waved a choice middle finger at the other woman over her shoulder. As soon as she rounded the corner, her legs gave out and she collapsed against the wall, her body shaking with sobs.

She’d lost him. She loved him and now he’d broken her heart. Again. She was angry with him, though she knew she had no right to be. She had no claim on Nick. She’d gone out of her way to make sure she didn’t. She’d rejected him outright that very night. He owed her nothing.

But she wanted to lash back all the same.

Pulling her cell phone from her pocket, she punched in a familiar number by memory. It only rang twice before a sleepy voice answered on the other end.

“Keith,” Lacey exclaimed, swallowing down the tears in her voice. “It’s Lacey. Can I come over?”


	2. Chapter 2

It was easy, really. It was horrifying how easy it was in the end.

Keith had let her in without a single question. If he’d said a word, she’d have left straight out. But he didn’t mention the last time they’d seen each other, the man who’d punched him, where she’d been the past several months, none of it. He just steered her into his bedroom, pushed her down on the sagging mattress and covered her with his body, the smell of stale cigarettes and whiskey clinging to his form like always. It was familiar. It was wrong. It was a self-destructive move she knew she would regret, but couldn’t stop.

He kissed her and she had to keep herself from flinching. She didn’t want him. She knew it and he knew it too, but fuck she needed something. Rush had fucked someone else, and so would she.

Keith had managed to get her skirt up, his fingers groping at her, pathetically rubbing against her all wrong. He hadn’t always been this bad had he? Had she really put up with it for so long? Had she just not realized what a good fuck actually felt like?

He managed to catch her clit with his thumb, completely by chance and she gasped. Keith must have taken it as a good sign because he grunted, burying his face in her neck.

He was too big, too heavy on top of her. She felt claustrophobic, like the tobacco stained walls of Keith’s squalid flat were closing in on her. The sheets on his bed smelled rank like sweat and sex and she missed the crisp clean feel of someone else’s sheets.

She gasped again, not with pleasure but with the need to release the bubble of panic that was building in her chest.

Keith pulled back, staring down at her.

“Why are you crying?” he grunted. His erection was poking in to her hip uncomfortably and she felt nothing but disdain for it, for how easily he’d taken her back, for how pathetic they both were.

She hadn’t even realized the tears welling in her eyes had spilled over. She reached up to wipe at her cheeks and funnily enough her fingertips came away wet.

She sat up, dislodging Keith from atop her.

“You’re fucking crying, Lace. What the hell?”

It was as if a dam had broken, the perverse little imp that had taken over her movements since she’d left Rush’s apartment suddenly dissolved and she realized for the first time where she was. A sob escaped her lips, the tears still falling with no way to stem the tide. She was breaking, right here in Keith’s shit apartment that she’d spent far too many nights in over the years.

“Lacey?” Keith’s voice broke through, tinged with something like concern.

Her shoulders just shook harder, the sounds coming from her throat barely sounding human.

After a moment, Keith got up and left the room, leaving Lacey to cry in solitude. She felt as though her entire heart were breaking apart until there was nothing left. She’d finally found it, that elusive fucking thing Belle seemed to have stumbled upon with no problem. And like the absolute cock up she was, she’d squandered it. She had no one to blame but herself. She’d pushed Rush away time and time again and this time, someone else was there to snatch him up.

* * *

 

He awoke with a splitting headache, hardly surprising given the night he’d had. Rush couldn’t quite remember what had happened, but he was sure that after Lacey’s flat out rejection, he’d proceeded to get as drunk as humanly possible.

His eyes were still shut, the effort to open them seemingly not worth the reward at the moment and he lay still, trying to assess his surroundings.

He certainly seemed to be in a bed, a pillow under his head and a soft blanket covering him. That was good at least. He hadn’t passed out in a gutter somewhere.

It was still disconcerting not quite knowing where one was, and he risked cracking an eye open before slamming it shut again immediately. Wherever he was was fucking bright.

Gathering his courage, Rush slowly squinted his eyes open. Once they’d adjusted, the room around him taking form in the morning sunlight, he let out a sigh of relief. He was home. Somehow, against all odds, he’d managed to make it to his own apartment. He only hoped he hadn’t been dumb enough to drive.

He sat up slowly, every movement jostling his aching brain that seemed to be sloshing around the cavern of his skull untethered. His mouth felt as though it’d been filled with steel wool and he was in desperate need of water if he was going to ever function properly again.

“Oh good, you’re awake!” came a chipper voice from the doorway, and Rush jumped so high he almost fell out the bed.

Zelena Greene was standing in the doorway to his bedroom, wearing one of his shirts and seemingly nothing else and holding one of his mugs to her pursed lips, blowing on the hot liquid within.

The shirt Zelena was wearing looked horrifyingly familiar. It looked rather like the one he’d put on yesterday morning and proceeded to wear all day. He looked down at himself with growing horror, realizing for the first time he seemed to be shirtless.

He wrenched the sheets up to cover himself, growling out at her.

“What are you doing here?”

Zelena’s eyes widened. “Is that any way to treat your savior, Nicholas?” she asked, sauntering in and sitting down on the edge of the bed. Rush wanted nothing more than to clamor out the other side, but he wasn’t entirely convinced he was wearing pants.

He’d never be drunk enough to take Zelena home. He’d have to be unconscious first. No matter what she thought of it, his heart belonged firmly to Lacey French. He wasn’t the type to drown his sorrows elsewhere regardless, but especially not with a woman he could barely tolerate on the best of days.

“Get out,” he managed between gritted teeth, his head still aching with the effort of being awake.

Zelena simply tutted, taking a sip of her coffee. “You are so grumpy in the mornings. Can I interest you in coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”

“You can interest me in leaving,” he bit back. “Why the hell are you here anyway?”

“Because I saved your bloody life,” Zelena snapped. “When I showed up at the bar last night you were falling all over yourself. If I hadn’t driven you home, you’d be dead in a ditch somewhere right now.”

Rush looked up at her, somewhat chastised. He supposed he did owe Zelena that at least.

“Well why am I naked?” he asked, gripping the bedsheets even tighter to his chest.

Zelena arched an eyebrow. “Don’t you remember, darling?”

He could feel bile rising up his throat. If he’d been drunk enough to take Zelena home, he’d also be too drunk to perform. There’s no way anything could have happened.

“Couldn’t have left much of an impression,” he growled out.

Zelena rolled her eyes.

“When I got to the Rabbit Hole, you were making a spectacle of yourself,” she explained. “I got you home safely and stayed to make sure you didn’t choke on your own vomit in the night.”

When she put it that way, he felt a bit of a spectacular arse. At any rate he was eternally grateful nothing had happened between them. He may have completely lost any chance he had with Lacey, but he was fairly certain sleeping with Zelena would salt the earth he’d already taken a torch to.

“And why are you wearing my clothes?” he asked, nodding his head toward the shirt she was wearing. It was one of his favorites, but he thought he’d rather soured on it now.

“Oh,” Zelena said, glancing down at her body. “My dress was a little uncomfortable for sleeping.”

He noticed a skintight green number tossed over the armchair in the corner of his room.

“Oh.”

All things considered his night could have gone much worse. Zelena was hardly his favorite person in the world, but he owed her gratitude for making sure he didn’t drive himself home or end up in the drunk tank at the sheriff’s station to sleep it off.

“Despite knowing you’re a regular at that seedy establishment, I’d never seen you so in your cups,” Zelena said, taking another sip of her coffee. It had a chip in the rim. Lacey had done that one morning after she’d stayed over. He’d come up behind her and kissed her neck startling her into dropping it in the metal kitchen sink. He turned away, wincing at the sunlight streaming through the window rather than see that cup.

“So,” Zelena continued. “What prompted that display last night?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Rush grumbled, flopping back down on the bed and throwing his arm across his eyes to block out the light. He certainly didn’t want to think about Lacey right now and the idea of sharing any part of himself with Zelena was abhorrent, no matter that she may have saved him from grievous bodily injury the night before. She looked just a little too smug drinking his coffee and wearing his shirt.

“Are you sure?” Zelena asked. The bed dipped beside him and he had the uncomfortable feeling she had laid down next to him. The next time she spoke her voice was far too close to his ear. “I’ve been told I’m an excellent listener.”

Rush sat up again, his vision swimming and feeling the overwhelming need to retch. He at least needed water and a handful of aspirin if nothing else.

Zelena was stretched out across the bed, his shirt riding up and displaying her distinct lack of underwear and he averted his eyes.

“God, would you take off my shirt, please?”

Zelena sat up, her eyebrows raising. “Well, I thought you’d never ask,” she said, reaching to undo one of the buttons straining across her chest.

“Not like that!” Rush held up a hand to stop her. “I mean get dressed. Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

Zelena let out a huff, crossing her arms against her chest.

“You know a thank you wouldn’t be remiss,” she said. “Especially after I saved you from further embarrassment last night.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, rubbing at his temples and wishing for all the world he could just go back to sleep. He didn’t really want to hear a single thing about his drunken display the night before. It was the first day of summer vacation and the bar had been crawling with his students. He only hoped none of them had seen him fall off a stool or, worse, leave with Professor Greene.

“That short little schoolgirl with the flat chest came by in the middle of the night, screaming your name outside and causing a racket. I’m surprised the neighbors didn’t call the police.”

That made his head snap up, his full attention finally on Zelena.

“Lacey was here?” he bolted out of bed, his potential nakedness be damned. He was relieved to find his boxers still in place.

“She was drunkenly stumbling around outside, yes,” Zelena said, leaning back against the pillows.

“Well what did she say?” he demanded.

“Nothing I’d feel comfortable repeating. Filthy mouth on that girl.”

“Why was she here?”

Zelena leveled him with a glare.

“What is it about that girl that has you so tangled up? She’s no one!”

“Wait,” he said, his foggy brain catching up with him as he pointed at her. “Did you answer the door like that?”

Zelena glanced down at his shirt. “Well, yes. I’d already changed for bed. It was nearly four in the morning.”

“Shit!” he exclaimed, raking a hand through his hair. Lacey probably had things all wrong and he was certain Zelena did nothing to clear up the matter. “What did you say to her?”

“Just that she couldn’t have expected to keep your interest forever. For Gods sake, Nicholas, she’s a child.”

“Get out,” he hissed.

“What?”

“Get out of my shirt and get out of my apartment!”

Zelena stood with a huff, glaring daggers at him.

“Fine,” she said snatching up her dress from the chair in the corner. “Lets see where I am next time you need a shoulder to cry on.”

“Get out!” he bellowed. Zelena’s eyes widened and she scurried out the open bedroom door. A moment later he heard the front door slam.

He scrambled for his cellphone in the pocket of the pants he’d worn the night before. The battery was almost dead, but he punched in Lacey’s number anyway, hoping by some miracle she’d pick up rather than go with her usual tactic of disappearing from the face of the earth when upset.

He’d already fucked up once by calling her by Gloria’s name. Now this. If she had changed her mind about being with him and come by last night to tell him, this second blow would surely drive her away forever. He had to try to explain himself, even if it was to her voicemail.

After only 2 rings, her phone surprisingly picked up, but it wasn’t Lacey’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Hullo?” came a deep voice with an English accent thickened by sleep. A voice Nick recognized from an alleyway so many months ago. A sick twisting feeling settled in Rush’s belly and he thought he might vomit, not from the hangover this time.

“Oh shit, this isn’t my phone,” Keith said, his voice getting further away as if he had pulled the phone from his ear. “Hey, Lace, babe, someone’s on the phone for you.”

He could hear a muffled sound of fabric and a sleepy voice gaining in pitch.

“—answered my phone!?” he heard Lacey shout.

There was a scuffle on the other end and suddenly Lacey’s voice echoed through his head.

“What?” she demanded. “Who is this?”

He swallowed down the bile that had clawed up the back of his throat.

“Lacey,” he said, his voice suspiciously hoarse.

There was the sound of a sucked in breath, released shakily. He could imagine Lacey there, sitting naked in another man’s bed, wrapped up in sheets that weren’t his, clutching the phone in her hand. He had no claim on her. He’d told her he loved her and she’d said no thank you. It was easy as that. He couldn’t judge her now. It didn’t stop his vision going blurry at the thought. He realized, after a moment, it was from tears.

“I fucked Keith,” she said. Without another word, the line went dead.


	3. Chapter 3

_Three months later_

It had been a long summer. 

Back in May it had seemed the best plan in the world to disappear into the wilderness for months on end. It had been surprisingly easy to wrangle a summer sabbatical, ostensibly to work on research for a new book. Holed up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no internet access and limited cell phone service hadn’t actually served to take his mind off Lacey however, and the end of their…well he couldn’t rightly call it a relationship, but whatever they’d once been and were no longer. 

He’d run the gamut of emotions in those first few days, sitting on the back porch of the cabin with a cigarette in one hand and a whisky in the other and wallowing in his own loneliness once again. He’d felt anger first, assailed with images of Lacey wrapped up in the beefy arms of Keith Nottingham. But he could only bruise his hand punching the wall so many times before he did permanent damage to either himself or the rented cabin. The anger was followed by sorrow bleeding in to full fledged grief that had him spending most of his day morosely staring at the wall, lacking the energy to even make a pot of coffee let alone work on theorems and calculations. 

But now, nearly three months later, he’d settled into a numb sort of disappointment. He still had flashes of the old anger – at Lacey, at Zelena, at the universe in general, at himself for ever being stupid enough to think he could possibly fall in love a second time in his miserable life – but those flashes were fewer and farther between than they’d once been. 

He was healing, moving on, getting over her. He figured by the time he returned to Storybrooke for the fall semester he may even be able to look her full in the face without feeling like his heart was being yanked out through his nasal passages.

He could look at things analytically now that he was further removed from the events. He’d given Lacey his heart and she’d rejected it outright. She’d shown up at his house in the middle of the night and then let a simple misunderstanding drive her back into the arms of a man who’d once assaulted her and couldn’t possibly, on his best day, deserve one iota of her attention. 

She was a self-destructive mess of a human being and he was well shot of her. It wasn’t really love. Lacey had been a pleasant diversion, but a diversion all the same. It was time to get back to work. 

That’s what he told himself anyway. 

And so Nicholas Rush put Lacey French out of his mind. He poured himself into his work with as little distraction as humanly possible. The closest town to his little hideaway was 30 minutes away and made Storybrooke look like a thriving metropolis in comparison. He only ever went to town for essentials, he glowered at everyone he saw, and retreated back to his cabin as soon as possible. By the time August rolled around he realized he’d not spoken more than three words to anyone since he left Storybrooke. And that was just fine by him. 

But now it was the last week of August and he was due back at the University on Monday for the fall semester. He’d briefly entertained the thought of looking for a job at another university. Maine had seemed as far from California as possible. What could be even further from Maine? He certainly had no desire to go home to the UK, and he was tragically monolingual when it came to useful languages. Canada perhaps? Australia? 

No. The accents would drive him mad. 

In any case, leaving Storybrooke after a single semester wouldn’t be the best look on his CV, so he was staying put for the time being. The only thing that gave him the least bit of relief was that the spotty email reception he’d had from the department over the summer told him Zelena had taken a position at Oxford and would sadly be leaving the program. At least that was one less obstacle he had to contend with. 

Rush packed up his meager belongings, tossing clothes and notebooks and the half a fifth of whisky left over in the kitchen into his suitcase on a Friday afternoon and loaded up his car for the drive back. He’d have the weekend to settle back in and finally catch up on all that neglected email correspondence, before department meetings dragged him back to hell come Monday morning. He watched the cabin disappear amid the trees in his rearview mirror thinking he’d miss the place. If nothing else, it had helped him get over a break up. 

It was nearing dusk as he drove in to Storybrooke, the old welcome sign still in need of a paint job. He followed the winding road into the center of town, the setting sun casting the shops and houses in shades of red and orange, colors the foliage would soon echo. It was a tranquil sight, a picturesque seaside town where nothing changed but the seasons. The neon sign above Granny’s Diner was lit up, a small crowd inside and a few patrons sitting on the patio outside, soaking up the last long days of summer. The sheriff was at the corner, laughing with a redheaded man in spectacles and an older man with a beard. A few children were kicking a ball down the sidewalk. 

It was like he’d never left. 

To the right of the street, he saw his landlord, Mr. Gold, exiting his pawnshop with a petite brunette on his arm. His heart leapt in to his throat for a split second before he realized it wasn’t Lacey. That would be Belle, of course. Still, the sight of Lacey’s twin hit him like a blow to the chest, his foot coming down hard on the brake, tires squealing in the evening air. He was lucky there was no one on the road behind him. 

A few pedestrians looked his way, including Gold and Belle, and he ducked his head as he hit the gas again, his heartbeat slowing back to normal after the rush of adrenaline. 

So, he thought, not quite as well adjusted as he’d hoped. He was a fool for thinking a few months of solitude could mend his broken heart. He’d loved her and he’d lost her, as simple as that. Downplaying it was nothing more than denial. 

He pulled up to the lone stoplight in the street, his car idling as he waited for the change from red to green. He watched as Gold and Belle got into his black Cadillac and pulled off down a side street. They always looked nauseatingly happy when he’d been faced with them. He wondered what the secret was. 

He turned his head to stare back at the street in front of him and he almost expected Lacey to leap out in front of his car the way she had that first time they’d met. A moment that had changed his life, not for better or worse per se, but changed all the same. 

The main street was devoid of Lacey shaped obstacles however, and he drove all the way to his apartment without spotting her.

* * *

His apartment hadn’t improved in the three months of his absence, still sparsely decorated, the cupboards bare, and the furniture second hand. The only change was a slightly stale quality to the air. It could use with a few cracked windows. 

He sighed as he dropped his suitcase just inside the front door and picked up the pile of mail that had amassed beneath his mail slot. He really should start thinking about a more permanent situation. He’d be in Storybrooke for at least another year and he wasn’t sure he could take another Maine winter with his inadequate heater. The apartment was only ever supposed to be temporary. 

He made a mental note to contact Mr. Gold about rental houses in the upcoming week as he carried an armload of mail through to the kitchen. He dumped it unceremoniously on the counter, suddenly exhausted at the idea of actually opening any of it. A task for tomorrow, he thought with a nod and instead retrieved his suitcase to set about unpacking. 

He dropped the bottle of whisky off in the kitchen, pouring himself a glass and taking it with him to his bedroom. The springs on his bed groaned beneath the weight of his suitcase as he dropped it there, staring down at the battered leather with a lugubrious expression. Unpacking, too, seemed an insurmountable task, but he was determined to do it. He’d need to head down to the laundry in any case. He was fairly certain he was low on clean underwear. 

A quick rifle through the suitcase unearthed jeans, shirts, underwear and pajamas and he piled them all up in his laundry basket. He took his toiletry bag across the hall to the bathroom, dumping it on the sink and studiously avoiding his own haggard reflection in the mirror. He knew the summer hadn’t been kind to him. He was thinner and older and just so goddamned tired. 

By the time he was done unpacking, night had truly fallen, the sound of crickets drifting in from his open bedroom window, the curtains fluttering in a slight breeze. The night was cool after the heat of the day and he searched through his dresser drawers for a sweater that smelled reasonably clean. When the first three drawers turned up no results, he opened the bottom drawer, stepping back with an audible intake of breath. 

“Oh,” he gasped, staring down into a drawer that was practically empty but for a few pairs of sweats and several scraps of lace and silk. 

Lacey’s panties. 

He sat down hard on the bed behind him, unable to tear his eyes from the sight. It had been a sort of game between them for a while. Lacey would leave her underwear in inventive places in his apartment. He’d snatch them up once she’d gone and hoard them in his drawer like some perverted dragon. She hadn’t asked for them back, only making note of it the last time they were together that day in his office. She’d been sinfully bare beneath her short skirt and told him mischievously that all her panties seemed to have disappeared. 

Rush swallowed down the lump that seemed to have formed in his throat. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, feel the every stutter of his heartbeat, as he just stared at a pile of lingerie he should have returned long ago. 

Finally he reached out and kicked the drawer closed with his foot. He’d ignore that drawer from now on. There was certainly no reason to go poking around in it and he was fairly certain Lacey would rather die than have him return it to her. 

* * *

The real gut punch came the following afternoon. Storybrooke was small and the university was even smaller so he knew he’d probably run into Lacey eventually. He’d only hoped he’d have a bit more time.  

He’d spent the morning responding to work emails long neglected until lunchtime rolled around and his stomach gave a loud rumble reminding him he’d had nothing to eat since early the previous day. He shut his laptop, ignoring the emails that were more than a few weeks old, and headed out to Granny’s for takeout. 

The sun was shining and he opted to walk his way into town rather than drive. He was half regretting his decision as the baking sun burned the back of his neck, sweat pooling at his lower back and slicking his button down shirt to him. It was hot out, the noonday sun high in the sky, the few whispy white clouds offering little in the way of relief. The relative cool of Granny’s was a welcome respite and he idled at the counter while he waited for his order. Eventually he had a white paper bag in hand, the grease from his burger and fries streaking the bag with oil spots and making the paper slightly translucent. He didn’t relish the walk home and he glanced around at the tables in the diner, briefly considering just eating his meal there. 

The waitress was watching him though, the slim one with the dark hair shot through with streaks of red. Ruby, he recalled. She was friends with Lacey, not that he’d ever spent any time with her. He and Lacey hadn’t had the type of relationship where he was brought round to meet her friends. He’d definitely seen her at the Rabbit Hole with Lacey on more than one occasion though. 

Suddenly the walk home didn’t seem half as daunting as eating under Ruby’s inscrutable glare, so he headed back outside, a wave of heat like entering a furnace hitting him full in the face. It almost had him longing for the long New England winters that were a few short months away. 

He’d just stepped out on to the sidewalk outside when he saw her, a pair of long legs swinging their way out of the cab of a delivery van emblazoned with the words “Game of Thorns”. 

His breath caught in his chest, the world narrowing to a spotlight on Lacey French as his heart attempted to beat its way through his ribcage and hop out onto the sweltering pavement. She was far too beautiful to handle at the moment. 

Lacey was dressed for the weather, a pair of cut off denim shorts exposing miles of her exquisite legs and a sleeveless black crop top showing off the planes of her toned stomach. She had a blue flannel shirt tied around her waist and a pair of sturdy looking combat boots in place of the heels he would have normally expected. Her hair was down, curling about her shoulders, the summer sun picking out highlights of red and burnished auburn amid the mass of dark curls. Her skin was browner than he remembered, her peaches and cream complexion sun kissed, and her shoulders and cheeks more freckled than they’d been in the spring. 

He watched as she rounded the back of the van, propping open the back door and pulling a large and expensive looking bouquet from within. The thing was almost as big as she was, and she sagged slightly under the weight, the muscles in her arms taut as she slowly and steadily made her way to the office building across the street. 

She disappeared inside and Rush looked off down the street in the direction of his apartment. She hadn’t seen him. He could avoid a confrontation, run home and hide away until the next time he was faced with her in the middle of the street. 

He sighed, running a hand through his hair in his indecision. It might be better to get it over with, no matter that he was woefully unprepared to see her. 

She had no right looking like that, tanned and toned and healthy. She’d probably spent her summer down on the beach with muscled twenty year olds pawing at her. She’d probably not given him a passing thought as she racked up notch after notch in her bedpost. Who was he to her but a simple diversion? A man she’d fucked a few times and moved on from quickly. A man who spent a summer hiding away in shame and pain. God he was pathetic. 

No. He would face Lacey. An insidious part of him hoped to see her face pale, her emotions reflected in those big, clear blue eyes of hers. She’d only slept with Keith because she thought he’d slept with Zelena. She’d done it out of hurt and anger. She’d ruined everything, but perhaps her heart had been bruised along with his. 

He straightened his spine, casting an eye down the street for traffic before he crossed it purposefully. He’d just hit the sidewalk when Lacey emerged from the office building once more, wiping her hands on the shirt tied around her waist. She pulled a small notebook and pencil out of her shorts pocket, crossing through something written there before stuffing it back in. Then she headed back toward the florist truck, coming up short when she was met with Rush in her path.

Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of him, her mouth flattening and her jaw tight. She didn’t look angry to see him, necessarily. More annoyed. His stomach seemed to be suddenly filled with leaden butterflies, fluttering around and weighing him down at the same time. She was still watching him and there was nothing for it now. He had to say something. 

He’d been prepared to feel off kilter when he saw her again. He imagined something akin to being kicked in the head by a donkey on steroids, sending him reeling in pain and a fair amount of nausea. He hadn’t expected the anger, so sharp and fresh that the last phone call between them might have happened that morning. He felt hot, suddenly, in a way that had nothing to do with the weather. He wanted to reach out and grab her, shake her, demand to know why she’d come to his apartment that night, why she’d run off into the arms of another man. Instead, he fisted the Granny’s bag tightly in his hand, the paper wrinkling in his sweaty palm.

“Lacey,” he said, giving her a little nod that felt impersonal and wrong. He was impressed with how cool his voice sounded, no hint at what was boiling just underneath the placid surface. “You’re looking well.” 

She seemed to shake off any surprise she’d felt at seeing him, her lips parting as she blew out a breath. He could remember the taste of those lips, the taste of every part of her. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and his eyes flicked downward to watch, no matter the anger swelling in his gut. Then he was just angry with himself for noticing how beautiful she looked. 

“I am, aren’t I?” she said with a cock of her head. She had one manicured hand braced on her hip. A few beads of sweat had taken up residence on her upper lip and he had the insane inclination to lick them away, taste the salty sweetness of her skin once more. He shook his head to clear it. 

“I just got back from vacation in Florida,” she continued, motioning over her shoulder as if the entire state of Florida was to her back. “Lots of sun and surf and piña coladas.”

Rush just nodded again like a bloody idiot. He’d spent three months in the woods trying to forget Lacey and she’d been in Florida enjoying the sun. After she’d dumped him and fucked her ex. The anger threatened to choke him and he pushed it down back to where it had simmered for months.  

There was a beat of silence, Rush still nodding foolishly and Lacey still staring at him with her head cocked to the side like she was trying to puzzle something out. Finally she broke the tension, shaking her head with a rueful laugh. 

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” she said.  

“Do what?” he asked. 

Lacey gestured between the two of them, an awkward smile on her face. “This,” she said again. “Small talk. Talking at all. It’s not like we were ever friends or anything.” 

Rush arched an eyebrow, the leaden feeling in his stomach bottoming out. 

“No I don’t suppose we were,” he said coldly.  

Lacey nodded. “Yeah. It’s not like there’s some relationship to salvage just because we’re not fucking anymore. You don’t owe me anything.” 

“Oh I don’t owe you a damn thing,” he snarled. 

Lacey blinked at him, her lips parting as if shocked by his anger. 

“Right,” she said again, her voice flat. “So we don’t have to pretend to be something we’re not. Have a nice day.”  

She skirted around him, heading for the driver’s side door of the truck, but Rush wasn't done yet. He wasn't letting her off that easily, not after three months of wondering why she'd shown up when she did at bloody 4 o'clock in the morning. What had she expected of him after leaving him standing alone in a rank alleyway only hours before? She couldn't have actually changed her mind about him. If she had, she wouldn't have slept with Keith. 

He stuck a hand out, grabbing Lacey by the crook of her arm and she spun around to face him, anger flashing in her eyes. Good. Let her be angry. Let her feel something.  

"Let go of me," she said, her voice wavering slightly. Rush dropped his hand immediately, trying not to focus on the feel of her soft, warm skin or the fact that he hadn't touched her in months. 

“Why did you come to my apartment?” he demanded. 

Lacey stiffened, her breath hitching before she schooled her features. 

“What are you talking about?” she said with a toss of her hair over her shoulder. “I haven’t been to your apartment in months.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he accused. “That night. _The_ night.” 

“No night with you sticks out any more than the others,” she said, her voice callous. “All kind of runs together if I’m honest.” 

He shook his head, his long hair falling in his face, wishing he could be certain Lacey was lying. Perhaps he had meant that little to her after all. He certainly wasn't confident enough in his own prowess to think he was a memorable lay. She'd always seemed to be enjoying herself though. That was a dangerous line of thought to follow with Lacey so close.  

“Fine,” he said, his voice clipped. He looked off across the street, anywhere but at Lacey, so determined to frustrate him at every turn. “Good talk. Great catching up.” 

“Sure,” Lacey said mockingly. “Lets do it again in another three months, asshole.” 

He huffed a sarcastic laugh, swinging his head back around to look at Lacey, his blood boiling. 

“I’m the asshole,” he growled. “You’re a fucking asshole, Lacey French.” 

“Oh using my full name!” Lacey exclaimed, clapping her hands against her cheeks. “Am I in trouble, Professor?” 

Her words called to mind the last time she’d referred to him as such, roleplaying in his office during finals week. Back when he’d called her by the wrong name and started this whole goddamn mess to begin with. Her eyes were hard behind her pantomime of innocence and he knew she’d done it intentionally. 

“Fuck you,” he snarled out, hating her but hating himself just a little bit more. 

He spun on his heel, stalking off across the street in the direction of home. Lacey wasn’t one to let the last word get away however. 

“No thank you!” she called after him, sunnily. “I’ve got much better offers these days.”

Rush ground his teeth together, not bothering to look back. Let her have the last word. Whatever they'd had was over and for once he felt relief. 

* * *

 

Lacey clamored up into the cab of the van, her hands shaking as she gripped the steering wheel. 

He was back. He’d actually come back. 

He’d disappeared three months ago and she hadn’t heard from him once in the interim. She hadn’t known what to expect, half thinking he’d just up and moved in the middle of the night. 

She’d actually tried to call him about a week after that fateful night. She’d had a bit too much to drink and she’d been feeling sorry for herself. She thought maybe they could yell at each other and it would make her feel better. She thought maybe she’d come clean, tell him the truth about Keith and tell him she couldn’t even blame him for Zelena because she’d dumped him first and he was free to fuck whoever he wanted. She wanted to be free like that but she’d been essentially celibate for three months, angry and sad, hurt and broken hearted all for what? An asshole who fucks the first thing he sees and then disappears rather than stay and work things out with the person he actually cares about?

God, Rush was the male version of her.   

He hadn’t answered or returned her call and Lacey figured it was just as well. Then she’d been forced to make another call a few weeks later. He hadn’t returned that one either. 

Lacey took a deep breath, forcing herself to relinquish her white knuckled grip on the steering wheel. She could feel herself spiraling, the world seeming to close in on her and she reached blindly for her purse on the floor of the cab, fishing her cell phone out of the mess of half empty lip gloss containers and old receipts. 

She ran a shaky hand through her hair as she punched in Belle’s number. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but she needed to hear a friendly voice. 

“Hey, Lace,” Belle answered on the third ring. 

“Hey,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. 

“What’s wrong?” Belle said immediately and Lacey heaved a sigh, her shoulders slumping. “What happened?” 

“How do you do that? How do you always know?” 

She could almost hear Belle’s penetrating stare on the other end of the line, willing her to come clean. 

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and trying to block out the image of Rush’s face, looking at her with so much anger and bile. 

“He’s back,” she said succinctly. “Rush is back.” 

“Oh,” Belle said, her voice going soft. “Oh honey, are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “I’m…I’m fine.” 

“Did you talk to him?” Belle ventured. 

“Talk, yell, curse out, you know, some variation of that,” she said, leaning back in the driver’s seat with a sigh.  

“Did you tell him?” 

“Tell him what?” Lacey asked, feigning ignorance. 

“You know what,” Belle returned, pointedly. “Don’t you think he’d want to know?” 

Lacey shook her head. “No. Nothing to tell anyway, is there? Not anymore.”

“Lacey,” came Belle’s concerned voice on the other end.

“Look,” she cut off her sister before she could possibly delve any deeper. “I’m not really feeling up to finishing these deliveries. There’s only two more to go. One to the Mayor’s mansion and one to Ashley in the hospital. Do you think you could take over?” 

“Sure,” Belle said immediately, her voice veritably dripping with understanding which only served to annoy Lacey further. “I’m at John’s. Just swing by with the truck.” 

“Okay,” she said, turning the key in the ignition and listening to the old engine groan and wheeze to life. 

“Lace,” Belle continued before she could hang up. “You have to be feeling a lot of things right now. Maybe you should call Dr. Hopper and see if he can fit you in today.”

"Yeah," Lacey agreed with a small nod. "Maybe." 

She rang off, pulling the delivery van back on to Main Street and driving the few blocks to Mr. Gold’s house, glad for the lack of traffic and the familiar streets. Her stomach was churning like she might be sick and the road before her was hazy through the angry tears forming in her eyes.

Rush was back. And goddamnit all she still loved him. 


	4. Chapter 4

Dr. Hopper’s office was cool and still, the blinds cracked and dust motes floating in the slices of sunlight spilling across the floor. Lacey rubbed her palms against her thighs, feeling almost as lost as she had the first time she’d set foot in this office months ago.

The leather sofa beneath her creaked as she shifted her weight from one side to the other, the office completely quiet but for the gentle ticking of the clock on the wall, counting away the minutes she had of Dr. Hopper’s time, minutes she was wasting at the moment.

The man in question was sitting opposite her, reclining in a deep armchair, one leg crossed over the other, and a notebook balanced on his knee. She avoided looking at him, staring over his head at his many degrees hung on the wall instead.

Dr. Hopper sighed, taking his glasses off and pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

“Lacey?” he said once he’d replaced his glasses on his nose. "You can tell me what's bothering you."

Dr. Hopper never pushed. Some days Lacey didn’t have much to say and he respected it, a gentle presence across from her until she finally mentioned what was on her mind. He was a good listener, and even though she knew she was technically paying him for the service, sometimes it almost felt like he cared.

“I, um, saw someone today,” she began haltingly, still staring at the certificate from the small liberal arts college where Hopper had done his undergrad. “Someone from my fairly recent past.”

“Nick,” Dr. Hopper supplied and Lacey nodded. She’d told him the whole sordid affair. There was no use couching the truth in vague terms now.

“How did that make you feel?”

Lacey shrugged. “Angry,” she admitted. “Sad too, but angry most of all. And then angry that I was angry.”

Dr. Hopper nodded, scribbling something in his notepad.

“We’ve talked before about your resentment, how it’s hard for you to forgive people.”

Lacey huffed a mirthless laugh. “There’s nothing to forgive. He technically never did anything wrong. But neither did I and it feels like I’ve been punished anyway.”

“Have you told him that?” Dr. Hopper asked, sitting forward in his chair and bracing his elbows on his knees.

“No,” Lacey snorted. “We can barely exchange a civil word on the best of days and today was _not_ a good day.”

Dr. Hopper nodded again, glancing down at his notebook.

“What did you talk about?” he prompted.

Lacey shook her head. “I don’t know. Nothing important, really. And the adrenaline was pumping and it’s not like I took notes or anything. But he asked why I went to his place, back before.”

Hopper nodded again.

“Did you tell him the reason?”

Lacey leaned back on the leather couch, hearing the fabric crackle beneath her.

“No,” she admitted. “I know I should be honest but he was so angry with me and he was being such an asshole that I just kind of played it off like I didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Hopper scribbled something else in the notebook.

“Are you satisfied with the outcome of your conversation?”

Lacey snorted loudly. “Fuck, no!”

Hopper just stared at her serenely and she crumbled.

“The last thing he said to me was a go fuck yourself, okay? He wants nothing to do with me. He _hates_ me.”

“What reason would he have to hate you?”

“Hell if I know,” Lacey lied. “I mean I guess I kind of dumped him and threw it back in his face when he said he loved me and now he’s had months away from me to realize what a shitty person I really am.”

“Lacey,” Hopper said sternly.

“Sorry, Doc,” she conceded. “But you know it’s true. I can be awful.”

“And you know when you mess up,” he said. “The healing process is not done overnight. You’re not going to wake up one day and be a different person. But we’re working to give you the tools to change the behaviors that have brought you so much unhappiness.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lacey said, crossing her arms against her chest and staring out the window blindly.

Dr. Hopper sighed again, closing his notebook and tossing it on to the side table next to his chair.

“You know what I think, Lacey?” he asked, and she turned her face back toward him eager for any bit of advice. “I think you are a person who feels things very deeply.”

Lacey raised an eyebrow and Hopper shook his head.

“It’s true,” he continued. “You hide your real feelings behind humor and sarcasm and on occasion a bit of cruelty. But behind all of that is a very sensitive woman. You feel things deeply, but you don’t always know how to express those feelings in a productive way.”

Lacey couldn’t argue with that. She sure as shit didn’t have great control of her emotions try as she might to quash them down.

“You said you were angry?” Dr. Hopper asked, and Lacey nodded. “Then _be_ angry. It is okay to feel that. Anger is a valid feeling. It’s how you express that anger that we need to work on.”

“Well what do I do, Doc?” she asked. “Because yelling in the street didn’t make me feel much better.”

Hopper shook his head with a small smile.

“If you could express yourself to Nick honestly, without feeling judged, what would you say?”

Lacey took a deep breath. She didn’t know what to say to him, that was the problem. If she’d had anything coherent in her head their earlier conversation might not have gone as badly. It would almost be better if she could point to one specific thing he had done, that she could blame him for. But instead there were just little things, a mass of tiny cuts from the shattered edges of two broken people. No one was to blame for their mutual baggage that made a relationship impossible. But it hurt nonetheless.

“That he hurt me,” she said with a nod, latching on to the aching feeling in her chest. “That he left me alone when I needed him. That he broke my heart. And that I can’t even have the satisfaction in hating him for it because if I’d just sucked it up and told him how I really felt none of this would have happened.”

“You blame yourself,” Hopper said, understanding dripping from every word. “You think if you’d been more emotionally open, things would be different?”

“Of course!” Lacey exclaimed, throwing her hands up. “If I was emotionally healthy I wouldn’t be here right now. But I’m a mess and it got someone else hurt. So he hurt me in retaliation. I can’t blame him for that. I do the exact same thing!”

“That sounds like a cycle you’d like to break out of,” Hopper said, nodding to himself.

“Of course I do,” Lacey said, her words sounding rough. She cleared her throat, swallowing down the lump that had formed there. “But that’s not likely, is it?”

“Why not?” Hopper prodded.

Lacey sighed, shaking her head wearily. “That’s just not how this works.”  

“That’s a very cynical view of things.”

“Yeah, well, no one ever accused me of being a romantic.”

Lacey sighed, leaning her head back against the sofa and staring up at the popcorn ceiling. The clock on the wall continued to tick away the minutes, of the session, of her life. God she needed a change.  

Despite the negative tone to the end of the session, Lacey did feel a bit better as she left Dr. Hopper’s office. It was late afternoon, the sun low in the Western sky, and she shuffled her way down the street toward the flower shop.

Her father was closing up for the day, moving the stands of unsold flowers back inside from the sidewalk.

“Hey, Dad,” she said, grabbing one side of a large wooden stand and helping him maneuver it through the shop’s front door. “Good day?”

Moe French motioned at the unsold stock, barely a dent in what had been there this morning.

“Not great,” he said. “But we’ve got the Mayor’s wedding coming up. That should have us set for the year by the sound of things.”

Lacey nodded, shoving her hands into the pockets of her shorts.

“How did deliveries go?” Moe asked, taking off his cap and mopping the sweat from his brow with a dingy handkerchief.  

“Fine,” she said. “Belle finished them up. I...had something to do.”

Her father looked at her flatly, clearly unimpressed.

“If you’re gonna work here I expect you to do the work,” he said. “Not pawn things off on your sister like always so you can galavant off God knows where.”

Lacey felt her shoulders hunch under her father’s disapproval. “I wasn’t galavanting,” she said, hating how surly and teenaged she sounded. She was a grown woman, for Christ’s sake. She didn’t need to be dressed down by her father like the rebellious sixteen year old she’d once been.

“I’ll expect you here bright and early tomorrow,” Moe said and Lacey couldn’t help the shock on her face.

“Tomorrow is Sunday,” she said. “We’re closed.”

“I want you here filling orders for Monday,” he said. “I need help with the arrangements.”

“Because business is suddenly booming,” Lacey snarked.

Moe looked up at her, slapping his baseball cap back on his head. “Because you’re not going to be out until all hours if I can help it. You live under my roof, Lacey. You abide by my rules.”

Lacey hadn’t been out to a bar all summer, but of course Moe hadn’t noticed. If she wasn’t at home, she must be drinking and fucking and dragging the French name through the mud. She was the problem child and she always would be.  

“I’m twenty years old,” she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. It would do no good to explode at her father, simply goading him into a fight she knew she could never win.

“Yeah,” Moe said, turning toward the stand of slightly wilted hydrangeas and starting to collect them in his burly arms. “And it’s a miracle you’ve managed to never come home pregnant in that time.”

His words were a gut punch, almost making Lacey double over in pain. Luckily her father’s back was still turned and she was able to make her escape, running breathlessly for the stairs to their apartment, the narrow stairwell seeming to close in around her.

She burst through the front door, her breath escaping her in a ragged gasp.

It shouldn’t hurt. This shouldn’t fucking hurt. It was for the best.

She sat down on the threadbare loveseat in the living room, bending over and putting her head between her knees until the wave of nausea passed. It was only when she sat back up that she realized she’d been crying, her face wet with tears and her eyes feeling puffy and sore.

Lacey dragged a hand over her face. She felt older than her years. She felt tired. She felt disgusting from a day spent out in the heat making deliveries.

With that in mind she stood from the couch, headed to the bathroom for a quick shower that instantly made her feel somewhat human again. She dragged a comb through her wet curls, letting them air dry as she put on a bit of mascara and lip gloss, foregoing her usual face full of makeup. Next she combed through her closet, on the lookout for something comfortable yet cute. A sundress and a denim jacket to block the cooler night air paired with her favorite wedges seemed appropriate and she dressed quickly, standing before the mirror to give herself a once over.

She looked approachable, she thought. She looked like someone who might have their life together. She looked like someone who could possibly deserve happiness.

With a nod, she headed back out to the living room only to find Moe already there, kicked back in his armchair with a beer in one hand and the television remote in the other. Lacey could hear snippets of TV programs as her father flipped idly between them.

“Where are you going?” he asked, without even bothering to take his eyes off the TV.

“Out,” Lacey said, her stomach still churning from his earlier words. “Apparently that’s all I’m good at.”

The apartment door slammed satisfyingly behind her, cutting off her father’s angry retort and Lacey breathed a deep sigh of relief. Anything would be better than spending the evening at home.

Outside, dusk had fallen, the night encroaching and the sky fading from lavender to indigo. The first wink of stars had appeared in the sky and Lacey set off at random from the flower shop, weighing her options, her footsteps and the gentle hum of crickets the only sounds on a quiet Saturday night. A few streets over a car backfired and Lacey idly headed in that direction.

The Rabbit Hole was definitely out. It had been months since she’d been there and she found she didn’t miss it. She could go to Granny’s, grab a burger and see what Ruby was up to. Or she could go to Gold’s and spend yet another evening third wheeling with Belle. Maybe she could goad Gold into watching a rom-com. That always made for some laughs. Or she could…

Lacey froze. She hadn’t quite realized the direction her feet had taken her, but she suddenly found herself on a very familiar street.

She could see his apartment building, down a block next to a flickering street light just coming on.

What would happen if she knocked on his door now, she wondered. Would he let her in? Slam it in her face?

She rubbed her palms together, bouncing on her toes in her indecision. She felt terrible about how their conversation had gone earlier that day. She might not hold out much hope for the two of them, but she at least needed Rush to know she didn't hate him. She needed him to know that she was trying to be a better person, that their relationship wasn't meaningless. 

She had no idea what exactly she would say to convey all that, but Lacey took a tentative step down the street anyway, the apartment building looming like the gates of Mordor. She shook off such a ridiculous thought. It was just Nick. And with any luck he wouldn’t even be home.

Lacey bit her lip, wringing her hands together.

 _Do the brave thing_ , she told herself.

She would knock. On the off chance that Nick was home, she would tell him the truth. Honesty, that’s what Dr. Hopper encouraged. She’d been anything but honest with Nick. Perhaps now was her time.

He was right, after all. Her usual tactic of ducking and weaving, joking and insulting, had brought her nothing but pain. She was on the outs with the only man she’d ever loved. Her father thought the absolute worst of her, a conviction so strong that not even months of sobriety and work ethic could sway him. Her sister, despite her good intentions, felt more like a caretaker some days than an equal. What did she have to lose if she told Nick the truth? It might even feel good, to have someone else to bear the weight of the past three months. 

“Oh, fuck,” she muttered under her breath as she quickened her pace toward Nicholas Rush’s apartment. “Please don’t be home.”

* * *

The rest of Rush’s day hadn’t gone much better than the first half. He’d gotten home to find that he’d pulverized most of his burger in his fist on the walk, stewing as he was over Lacey. It was barely edible, though he’d made a valiant effort from sheer desperation. His afternoon had been spent doing laundry and going through still more emails. He was somewhere in mid-July now as he worked backward, deleting most of them unread. And through it all he’d been reliving his tense exchange with Lacey.

He was done with her. He’d told himself as much time and time again, and yet he still couldn’t get her off his mind.

Perhaps he needed to fuck someone else for real. What was that old saying? The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else?

Rush shuddered at the expression. No, adding any other poor sap into his personal drama would definitely not help matters.

Judging from the lack of light coming in through his windows, night had fallen, and his stomach gave another unfortunate grumble.

He’d managed to get to the store for essentials, meaning coffee, whisky and pot noodle, and he set his laptop down on the coffee table before ambling into the kitchen in search of something to nibble.

He poured a measure of whisky into a glass, taking a fortifying sip as he looked over the directions on the back of his pot noodle. He ripped off the top, but before he could add water, there was a sharp knock on his door.

Rush’s heart leapt into his throat. For a wild moment, he wondered if it was Lacey. She was the only one who ever used to come knocking on his apartment door. That was insane, of course. It was probably a neighbor who’d received his mail on accident or some such.

He set the cup of dried noodles down on the counter, padding over to the door in socked feet and threw it open, ready to take his mail and be done with the encounter.

Instead, he came up short, momentarily shocked to silence to see Lacey standing there. Despite his slip up a moment earlier, he’d never thought to see her framed in the doorway of his apartment again.

Lacey looked as surprised as he did, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. She looked small, and young and innocent wearing a thin white sundress that looked more like a nightgown and an oversized denim jacket that swamped her petite frame. Her combat boots from earlier were gone, replaced with her usual heels bringing her almost up to his height.

“Lacey,” he said, his voice coming out more breathless than he’d intended.

“Hey,” she said. “You’re home.”  

Rush shook his head for a moment, still dazed at her presence.

“As you see,” he said, gripping on to the door for support. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

Lacey bit her lip, crossing her arms against her chest as if she was cold, despite the warmth of the evening. She looked up at him and just as quickly looked away again, almost as if she was nervous or afraid.

“Look are you busy right now?” she asked, glancing past into his empty apartment as if expecting to see a full dinner party eagerly awaiting his return.

“No,” he said, stepping back to allow her entrance. No matter what he said or thought, he knew he’d always let her in. She was a weakness he just couldn’t shake.

Lacey seemed to deliberate for a moment, looking for all the world like she might bolt despite being the one to show up unannounced in the first place. But she didn’t run. Instead she dropped her arms to her sides, stepping inside. Rush closed the door behind her, the latch catching with an echoing click.

They stood there for an awkward beat, neither quite meeting the other’s eyes and Rush felt a slight ringing in his ears due to the silence.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asked in an effort to break the tension, motioning toward the living room, the breakfast table, the stools at his kitchen bar, all visible from the front door. He really needed a bigger place. His apartment was essentially one room with a bed and bath attached.

Lacey’s eyes looked frantic for a moment as she took in his apartment before she shook her head, crossing her arms again.

“No,” she said. “This shouldn’t take long.”

He nodded, clasping his hands in front of him and looking down at her expectantly. He couldn’t imagine what Lacey possibly had to say to him now, but he couldn’t help but be reminded of what she might have said to him that fateful night three months ago if Zelena hadn’t intervened. What if she had changed her mind about him? What if they could have been snuggled together in his bed even now if not for one universal cock up?

Lacey kicked her toe against the hardwood floor, seemingly in no hurry to say whatever she’d come to say. She shrugged her jacket off, walking around Rush and dropping it on his kitchen table next to his pile of unopened mail. Then she turned around to face him, her face determined.

“I’ve spent the summer working on myself,” she began haltingly, as if every word she was forcing out was physically painful. “I’m trying to not be such a selfish basket case of a person, you know?”

Rush wasn’t sure what to say in response, so he just listened in silence. Lacey watched him for a moment, waiting for a gibe, and when none came she let out a sigh, dropping her shoulders as she turned away from him, looking down at the stack of junk mail and rifling through it with her fingertips.

“So, I um, I quit smoking. And I try to eat more salad. Belle dragged me to yoga a few times. And I started seeing a shrink.”

Her last sentence was delivered so rapidly that it took Rush a moment to process what she had said.

“A shrink,” he repeated.

“Yeah don’t make a thing of it,” she said, waving a hand at him and leaning back against the breakfast table, her bottom landing right on a coupon from Bed, Bath and Beyond. “Turns out I have a whole boatload of issues that need addressing so I’ve kept him pretty busy. But it’s been good. I’m good. I’m trying anyway, to be…good.”

“Good,” Rush said with a nod, not entirely sure where she was headed with any of this. He was glad she was confiding in him though. Perhaps not all hope was lost. Perhaps something could be salvaged from the mess they had made. Nothing romantic, but an understanding perhaps.

“Today wasn’t good,” she said, looking up at him and actually meeting his eye for the first time since she’d arrived.

“No,” he agreed. Today had been pretty bloody awful.

“My shrink says I need to be honest with people, tell them how I feel and what I want and particularly when it comes to the emotional shit I don’t like to talk about. And today I wasn’t honest with you, so I came here to correct that.”

Rush’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“You seemed pretty convinced of your vitriol at the time,” he shot back. Lacey blanched and he immediately wanted to kick himself. Perhaps he was even less comfortable with the “emotional shit”, as Lacey so eloquently put it, than she was.

Her lips parted, ready to hurl some insult at him he was absolutely certain. She took a breath, her lower lip wobbling slightly.

“I – I…” she broke off, licking her lips. “I lied about the piña coladas,” she finished, lamely. Her shoulders seemed to sag beneath the weight of that admission.

Rush just blinked at her.

“What?” he asked, increasingly confused by everything that came out of Lacey’s mouth.

“Earlier today,” she said, as if that should clue him in on anything. “I told you that while I was in Florida it was all sun and surf and piña coladas.”

“Ah,” Rush said, still not understanding what fruity drinks had to do with anything.

Lacey pushed off from the breakfast table, stepping closer to him. He instinctively wanted to take her in his arms and he jammed his hands into his pockets to quell the impulse.

“There was sun and there was surf, but there were no piña coladas.”

“That’s what you came by to say?” he asked, that simmering anger swelling once again. Of all the things she could be honest with him about, first and foremost what she’d come to say to him that night three months ago, she was rambling about drinks.

“Do you want to know why there were no piña col…”

“For fucks sake, I don’t care what you drank on your vacation, Lacey!” he exploded. “I thought maybe you came by to talk about something real, but I suppose that’s still beyond you no matter how much you pay an hour to some doctor.”

Lacey stepped back from him, something in her eyes shuttering closed.

“Fine,” she said with a stiff nod. “Noted. Won’t bring it up again.”

Rush sighed, raking a hand through his hair in frustration. Even if they hadn’t had dead spouses and communication problems galore and a tendency to run at any sign of trouble, they could never be in a successful relationship. Lacey drove him absolutely fucking crazy.

He dragged his hands down over his face, almost surprised to see Lacey still standing in front of him when he moved them out of his vision.  

“I don’t hate you, you know,” she said, her cool blue eyes never wavering from his face. “I wanted to. I probably even should. And God knows I tried to for a few weeks there. But if I really think about it I can’t even blame you for anything that happened.”

She gave a weary little shake of her head,

“I ended things. It’s not like you cheated on me or some shit. There wasn’t anything to cheat on.”

Rush shook his head, ready to clear up one misunderstanding for good.

He could admit to himself that the only reason he hadn’t led with “I didn’t sleep with Zelena” when they ran into each other earlier that day was because some part of him wanted her to keep thinking he had. She had slept with someone else and it hurt so damn much he wished to God he could do the same.

But it was a lie, and if they were attempting honesty, he should come out with it already.

“I didn’t sleep with Zelena,” he said, the words spilling out and immediately making him feel lighter.

Lacey raised her right eyebrow, but gave no other indication she’d heard him.

“What?” she demanded after a moment.

“Whatever you saw or think happened that night, you were misled. Intentionally, I imagine.”

Lacey tilted her chin up, looking at him incredulously, but there was something reflected in those wide blue eyes of hers, something that looked slightly hopeful. She wanted to believe him.

“So you’re accustomed to having women you haven’t slept with answer the door to your apartment at 4AM in nothing but your shirt?”

Rush sighed, propping his hands on his hips. That damned woman.

“No,” he admitted. “But I was drunk. She drove me home, that’s all.”

Lacey matched his pose, placing her hands on her hips as well, a power stance.  

“Must have been pretty drunk to let Zelena know where you live.”

He huffed a short laugh. “I don’t remember much of it, to be sure.”

Lacey narrowed her eyes at him. “Then how do you know nothing happened?”

Rush spread his hands wide. “I couldn’t even stand upright, I doubt anything else was standing to attention.”

Lacey’s eyes flicked down to his crotch for a moment before she gave another shrug, turning away from him. “Fair enough.”

He'd expected more of a reaction, to be sure. Lacey had run off, back into the arms of a man she knew was bad for her. He'd thought it was in retaliation but maybe he had it all wrong. Maybe Lacey had only shown up that night to kick him while he was down, to flaunt the fact that she was back together with Keith and his declaration of love was nothing but a hilarious joke to them. 

"Well," he prompted. "Do you have anything to say?" 

“So you didn’t sleep with her,” Lacey said, bracing a hand against one of the kitchen chairs. “It doesn’t really change anything, does it? We’re still too fucked up to be together. Everything I said that night at the Rabbit Hole still stands.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, stepping closer to Lacey. Because she was right, no matter how he wished things could be different.

“I think, maybe, we’re just all wrong for each other,” she said, tilting her face up to his. “It was never gonna work out no matter if we wanted it to or not.”

This was it then. He’d come clean, told her the truth, and they were still at an impasse. He couldn’t blame Zelena for what went wrong, she’d merely been another in a long line of setbacks. There was no future with Lacey French.

“I’m sorry, Lacey,” he said, reaching up to stroke a thumb against her chin. “For what it’s worth.”

She nodded, his thumb bobbing along with her head. "I'm sorry too."

She let out a ragged little gasp, shutting her exquisite eyes for a moment. When they opened again, they were wet with unshed tears.

"I just want to be happy," she said. "I haven’t been in a long while. And that’s not your fault, obviously. You couldn’t fix me any more than I could fix you. Sometimes people are just…messed up. We have to fix ourselves.”

“I was happy,” he said, startling himself. He wasn’t sure he’d meant to say the words aloud. Lacey's eyes went wide, her lips parting and a gust of breath fanning over his face. “I think I was happy anyway. When we were together. Everything just felt less…bleak.”

“Nick,” she said sadly, her voice wavering on his name. It was the first time she'd said his name since they'd seen each other again and something between them seemed to snap, a thread pulled taunt, reaching its ultimate tensile strength. The air was suddenly electric and somehow his hand had dropped from her chin, finding the bend in her waist instead.  

A moment later Lacey's lips were on his, frantic and pulling and despite the warning bells, he couldn’t help but kiss her back.

Lacey pulled back just as quickly as she had pounced, her eyes round.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said, her chest heaving under the thin cotton of her dress. She had a hand pressed against his chest and he relished the simple touch, the first kind touch he’d had in months. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said, his head fuzzy from the kiss, from the feel of her soft lips and the taste of her after so long. Unbidden his arms wrapped around her waist and despite her words, Lacey didn’t move her hand from his chest.

She looked up at him, her eyes bright, a tear clinging to her dark lashes.

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath. Then she’d grabbed him by the back of the neck, pulling him in for another kiss.

He felt her tongue against the seam of his lips and he opened up, letting her take from him. This was a terrible idea. They hadn’t cleared up a goddamn thing, but Lacey was here in his arms and he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

Lacey’s hands were buried in his hair, her mouth hungry against his own and his hands palmed her backside, gripping her tighter to him. He relished the feel of her, the softness of her curves against his hard edges. God but he’d _missed_ her.

He lifted her up, stumbling back toward the breakfast table before plopping her down on his pile of mail again. Lacey grunted, pulling her lips from his.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, her voice raw.

“I’m kissing you,” he growled back before capturing her mouth again.

It was sloppy, Lacey’s legs coming up to wrap around his waist, their mouths moving together with a wet, smacking sound that seemed to echo in his silent apartment. Lacey gripped on to his shoulders, her nails biting through the fabric of his shirt and he could feel himself swelling in his jeans, his need for her too much to be contained.

It was nothing to slide his hands up her thighs, pushing her skirt up around her waist. He was glad she’d changed out of the shorts she was wearing earlier. If he’d had to remove clothing from her it would have taken him out of the haze, been the exact slap of reality he needed to end things.

Instead, he reached down beneath her skirt, nudging her panties aside with his fingers to stroke through her wetness, and Lacey gasped.

“Stop!” she said.

He froze, prepared to put her down and watch her walk away from him, potentially for the last time, but Lacey just looked up at him with fevered eyes.

“I don’t want your fingers,” she said, grinding her hips against him. “I want your cock. Please.”

He wasn’t prepared for the bolt of electricity her words sent through him, nearly making his knees buckle and sending them both to the floor. Somehow he managed to stay upright, holding Lacey against the table as she scrambled with his belt buckle. A moment later he felt his trousers fall down about his ankles and Lacey reached inside his boxers to pull him free, stroking him roughly.

“Come on,” she demanded, lining them up. Rush needed no further encouragement to thrust into her. Lacey’s back arched as she let out a keening whine. A guttural, animalistic sound was ripped from his own throat and he had to bury his face against Lacey’s neck, her long hair sticking to his sweaty temple.

“That’s good,” Lacey praised, pumping herself against him.

Rush took one hand off her bottom, bracing it on the table beside Lacey's hip. One of her legs slipped from his hip, hanging off the edge of the table. Her other leg was still wrapped around his waist, her heel digging in to his backside, urging him on.

She felt like heaven. She was silk around him, hot and tight and perfect.

“I missed you, Lacey,” he groaned against her ear, his mind devoid of anything but the feel of her clenching around him, the scent of her arousal and the heat of her body. “Missed you so fucking much.”

“Just move,” she pleaded, grasping at his hips.

He pulled out slowly, before snapping his hips back against hers and Lacey let out a grunt, her hands tightening on his shoulders.

“Your cunt is incredible,” he growled. “You feel so fucking good.”

Lacey just clung to him tighter, her body tense as a bowstring.

He couldn’t quite believe they were here again, having a quick, half-clothed fuck in his apartment like it was six months ago, mid-winter instead of end of summer. They were right back where they bloody well started.

Lacey was letting out little mewling noises, her curls sticking to her flushed face, her lips parted. She was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen. He wasn’t going to fucking last long.

“I’m gonna…I can’t…”

“Don’t you dare fucking come yet!” Lacey interrupted, her nails stinging his left shoulder in punishment. “Not before me.”  

He screwed his eyes shut tight, trying to think of every boring thing he could, anything to distract him from Lacey’s perfect cunt.

He grabbed her leg again, hoisting her up once more so her weight was entirely braced in his arms. Lacey’s eyes went wide as the change in position had him driving deep inside her.

“Oh, fuck!” she yelled before her channel clenched tight around him, her body convulsing against him, her legs locked about his waist. He swallowed her groans with another kiss, his lips pressing sloppily against her parted ones. Rush couldn’t wait another bloody minute. He emptied himself inside her with a long, agonized groan, feeling like she was taking the very life essence from him and leaving him empty and hollow.

He dropped his head against Lacey’s shoulder, lowering her back on to the table, no sound in the apartment but their labored breathing. Her hand tightened on his shoulder and she unwound her legs from around him. Rush was still hunched over her, feeling too numb to move quite yet. His jeans were at his ankles and his boxers pulled down just beneath his buttocks. His softening cock slipped from Lacey’s warmth and he hissed at the cooler air against his heated skin.

Lacey tapped him against the chest with her palm, trying to get him to step back and he did so, resignedly.

He fixed his boxers and pulled up his jeans while Lacey pulled her skirt back down. Without a word she slipped off the table, leaving a smear of their mingled fluids on the Bed, Bath and Beyond coupon. Lacey walked into his kitchen, grabbing a wad of paper towels and wetting them down at the tap. He turned away as she reached up under her skirt to clean herself, clean _him_ away, before tossing the towels in the bin.

“That was a mistake,” she said as she walked back to the door, studiously avoiding his eyes. “It’s…it’s not going to happen again. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“It happened thirty seconds ago,” Rush growled out, his voice dangerous. He knew what would happen. He knew it was a bad idea as much as she did. But watching her up and walk away, tell him it meant nothing, was too much to take.

“Yeah and I have immediate regret,” Lacey snapped. Rush tried not to let that word pierce him too badly, but it still did. “This isn’t why I came here tonight.”

“Then why did you come here?” he demanded. “Is this all I am to you? An easy fuck?”

“No,” she cried, spinning away from him, dragging a hand through her hair. “No, of course not. But I made a promise to myself when you left, okay? I was going to get whole and healed and work through all my shit and not do stupid, impulsive stuff like screw you on a dinner table!”

“Well, bang up job with the new Lacey,” he said snidely. “Things seem to be going really well.”

Lacey rolled her eyes.

“Look I get you’re mad at me,” she said. “I’m mad at me too. I just haven’t been laid in like three months and my vibrator broke and here you are looking like that and saying all the right things and I’m compulsive. I can’t help myself!”

Rush glanced down at his wrinkled white button down and jeans, unsure of what was supposed to be so particularly alluring about him.  

“What about Keith?” he found himself asking petulantly. “If you’re so hard up for it certainly he’d oblige.”

Lacey gave him a flat look, her eyes barely contained from rolling in their sockets.

“I didn’t fuck Keith any more than you did Zelena,” she said.

Rush’s brows drew down in question.

“You didn’t sleep with Keith?” he asked.

“No,” Lacey said, crossing her arms against her chest. “I didn’t. Couldn’t find it in me to sink that low for once.”

Rush shook his head in confusion. “Then why did you tell me you did?”

“Because I wanted to hurt you!” Lacey said, throwing her hands up in the air. “I lied to hurt you. Because that’s the type of person I was. Or am, rather, judging from tonight.”

She hadn’t slept with Keith. He hadn’t slept with Zelena. What the fuck were they fighting about anyway?

He must have said the last part aloud because Lacey was staring at him wide eyed.

“We’re the type of people who will lie to hurt each other!” she exclaimed. “What about that screams healthy relationship material?”

The anger that had been so persistent over the past few months seemed to evaporate immediately. Jealousy, he marveled. That’s what that feeling had been, more than anything else. He’d been a bloody jealous idiot and instead of talking to Lacey he’d run off to the woods making everything interminably worse.

“So we both need to work on honesty,” he said, stepping toward Lacey and taking her hands in his. “We can do that.”

Lacey’s face was unreadable, a mix of emotions crossing her eyes in quick succession before settling on sad.

“I don’t think I can,” she said. “What if honesty just hurts someone?” she trailed off, wrenching her hands out of his grip and spinning away.

“Lacey,” he said, his stomach sinking. “What are you saying?”

Her back was to him, rigid beneath the thin white cotton of her sundress. He could hear her sniffles, enough to know that she was crying and didn’t want him to know. She never would let him see her break. 

“I um, I really need to go,” she said, nodding to herself before turning back to Rush, her face composed. “My dad has been all but imposing a curfew and I have to work early tomorrow.”

She walked around him, grabbing her jacket off the table and shrugging it back on. He could do nothing but watch.

“I'll see you around," she said, briefly gripping his hand as she walked to the door. "No hard feelings, you know? I don't want to regret what we had just because we can't make it work. I need you to know it was real for me too." 

She turned around, her hand on the apartment door and Rush stopped her with a word.

"Lacey," he said, and she froze. “If you’re really committed to honesty, please tell me why you came here that night.”

She turned back toward him, reaching up to cup his unshaven cheek. Rush leaned in to the touch, relishing the gentle stroke of her thumb against his stubbled chin, despite everything. 

“To tell you that I love you too,” she said simply. “Three months ago that might have meant something.”

With that she slipped away into the night, leaving Rush standing in the doorway more confused than ever. 


End file.
